The Bears dominated the second half and pulled away to a comfortable win over Miami as the Thursday free play. I’ll swing with a baseball play for the Friday comp.
RAYS (Karns) @ RANGERS (Perez)
Take: RAYS +105
A fairly important weekend series gets started tonight in Arlington as the Rangers play host to the Rays. Each team remains in wild card contention. The Rays are only two games behind the Angels, and Texas trails the Halos by only 3.5 games, so these two teams are very much alive and there’s plenty on the line here.
Tampa Bay is yet again doing its best to hang tough in spite of the most constricting financial restraints of just about any big league team. The pitching continues to be the plus factor for the Rays, and if they manage to get to October again, it’s going to be thanks to the arms. But there are some signs of life in the batting order and if the Tampa offense can just be respectable the rest of the way, they have a real shot to slip into one of the wild card slots.
The Rangers are a dicier proposition from where I stand. I just don’t trust their staff to be able to get it done at crunch time. Certainly the acquisition of Cole Hamels helps in a very big way. But the remainder of the rotation is shaky. It might well be that the key guy could be tonight’s starter, Martin Perez. Someone beyond Hamels has to stand up in these final weeks. Yovani Gallardo is not trending in a positive way, Colby Lewis isn’t consistent and the fifth starter spot has been yikes material for some time now.
As for this evening, I give Karns an edge over Perez, and the Rays bullpen owns a fairly substantial advantage over their Texas counterparts. Overall offense numbers favor the Rangers, but no so the more recent data. It’s also worth noting that the Rays are fielding a lineup that looks okay when the platoons get the righty hitters into action. Rookie Richie Shaffer has added a bit of power to the Tampa lineup, and the Rays should also get Desmond Jennings back tonight. Jennings has never lived up to billing overall but he’s much better against lefties that righties and I would guess he’ll be patrolling left field tonight.
Let’s also note a simple stat, which is that Tampa Bay has been better on the road than the Rangers have been at home. I made the Rays a small favorite when working my numbers on this game. Barring any negative late info, that means the Rays at plus money a take tonight.
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I have two NFL 2* Best Bets loaded for Friday.
Also, today is last day for early bird discount on my NFL Season package.